Ezra Klein

Vox editor-in-chief Klein doesn’t often look back fondly at the good old days of the conservative movement, but he did so in a Sunday post inspired by the death of Nancy Reagan. Klein thinks conservatism was at its best in the 1980s, for which he gives considerable credit to the First Couple of the era.

Klein wrote that the “political genius” of the Reagans “was to shape the pessimistic, angry conservatism of Barry Goldwater into a more hopeful, inclusive ideology…an ideology that felt confident rather than scared…Today, though, conservatism feels like it's falling back into its pre-Reagan despair…Rather than believing in the essential greatness of America, conservatives today often speak as if the country is an election away from losing its magnificence forever.”

Discussing the fallout of Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate on the Monday edition of MSNBC’s All In, host Chris Hayes and Vox Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein lamented that Clinton’s “tremendous command and mastery” of subject material when working with colleagues hasn’t exactly shown through to voters as she’s “seemed paralyzed by her knowledge of how many ways a straightforward position can get attacked.”

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio put media bias on the front burner at CNBC’s Republican presidential debate, but conservatives and liberals differed sharply on whether what was in the pot smelled appetizing. Several lefty bloggers turned up their noses at the idea that in last night’s event and in general, the media favor Democrats.

How many times have we heard that Donald Trump has peaked since he declared his candidacy for president in June? A half dozen times? More? And each time Peak Trump was announced by pundits, it was inevitably followed by yet another surge in the polls. This is probably why in recent weeks, media prognosticators seem to have shied from declaring Peak Trump since it is always followed by you-know-what. However enter Ezra Klein of Vox. Throwing caution to the winds, Klein went where few now dare to go by predicting that we have indeed finally reached Peak Trump. Klein consulted charts and graphs before tuning up his horn to play taps on Trump's candidacy. Of course, the inevitable quickly happened to leave Klein's face covered with egg. But first let us join Klein's bold assertion of Peak Trump posted at 8:20 this morning:

Among the insights: Fiorina "has a notable facility for delivering answers that thrill conservatives but fall apart under close examination"; a discussion of childhood vaccines showed that the party is "fervid, claustrophobic, recklessly insinuating, and, at the same time, utterly timid when it comes to extremism in its own ranks”; and the GOP as a whole is "wedded to the tenets of [George W.] Bushism — rabid, debt-financed, regressive tax-cutting, reflexive hostility to regulation, and a pervasive anti-intellectualism."

Donald Trump's refusal to say that as president he would discard the Iranian nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration is "eminently sensible" and a sign that the Manhattan real-estate tycoon is not beholden to conservative Tea Party orthodoxy, MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes argued on his August 17 All In program.

Discussing the upcoming King v. Burwell decision on the legality of ObamaCare subsidies, Lawrence O'Donnell pushed the idea that Republicans would be culpable if the Supreme Court rules against the administration. On the June 17 edition of The Last Word, the host invited on the liberal trio of Ezra Klein, Dana Milbank, and Michael Tomasky to attack the Republicans for their irresponsibility and their supposed inability to come up with a replacement for the health care law.

“The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.” That proverb sums up Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein’s Friday analysis of the policy and politics of Obamacare.

In this metaphor, the dogs are ideologues on both sides who, heedless of evidence, have been barking (and snarling and growling) at each other about the Affordable Care Act. As Klein noted, “Social scientists have [determined that] the more information partisans get, the deeper their disagreements become. When it comes to politics, people reason backward from their conclusions.” The caravan is Obamacare itself, which, Klein opined, is “nowhere near perfect” but in general is succeeding by “doing pretty much what it said it would do, at a lower cost than anyone thought.”

Did President Obama do a standup comedy routine at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner? Not as much as he performed “a recital of brutal truths,” asserted Vox’s Klein in a Monday article.

For example, regarding Obama’s remark that his executive actions on climate change and immigration were “the right thing to do,” Klein noted, “That's not a joke. That's Obama's actual justification for the aggressive executive actions of his second term…[O]nly [at the WHCD] can [he] say what everyone already knows: his actions are huge, they are controversial, they push the norms of American politics, but fuck it, at a moment when American politics seems increasingly broken, Obama has decided to just go ahead and do what he thinks is right.”

Klein thinks pushing the climate-change issue might cost Gore votes, but it’s a risk that could pay off big if Gore’s elected, since “climate change is an issue where the president has real unilateral authority.” In any event, funding the campaign wouldn’t seem problematic. Klein noted that Gore himself now is “fabulously wealthy — richer, even, than Mitt Romney” and added, given super-rich environmentalists’ esteem for the star of An Inconvenient Truth, that “it's easy to imagine, say, billionaire Tom Steyer gathering some friends and putting some massive superPAC money behind Gore.”

Journalist Ezra Klein on Monday pronounced that if economic conditions continue, Hillary Clinton will win "42 states" in 2016. The former Washington Post columnist, now the editor at Vox, appeared on MSNBC's All In to make his prognosticate.

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